Collaboration with Change Agents, Movement Makers, and Community-Based Organizations
In the RCC community survey last year, 35% of our retreat center respondents indicated interest in learning more about building relationships, establishing partnerships, and starting collaborative projects with movement groups and community-based organizations. On a recent Community Call, we hosted a conversation with leaders on both sides of the equation to learn about their work.
View the full meeting video by clicking the image above.
Or scroll down for takeaways from the conversation.
Our Panel of Speakers
Our speakers each had their own perspective on retreat and what retreat centers can offer people working for social change.
Ain is the founder of New Seneca Village, which is an emerging retreat space for cis, trans-feminine, and non-binary women of color to be in residency together with an emphasis on restoration, connection, and visioning. They don’t have their own retreat center, but they partner with other retreat spaces.
Ain emphasized that many retreat centers have not been primed to be with folks of color.
When New Seneca Village looks for partnerships, they need to be able to buy out the whole space to reduce the “isms” folks have to deal with.
They ask that staff that don’t need to be around aren’t around.
They’ve worked with The Whidbey Institute on the West Coast and are looking for partners on the East Coast.
Allyn is co-executive director of Highlander Research and Education Center. Highlander was established ninety years ago and isn’t a retreat center per se, but it functions as a space where folks can engage in retreat to support their work of grassroots organizing, leadership development, and movement building.
Allyn emphasized the need to think about your retreat center’s organizing cultures: You can reduce yourself based on your identities or expand your understanding of who you are based on the plurality of your identities. There are a lot of different organizing traditions that come with being in a very pluralistic part of the world. Considering how you align your center is a part of the invisible work that needs to be made more visible.
Aaron is Steward of the Pattern at Wildseed Society. Wildseed is at the intersection of movements for social transformation, spiritual liberation, and economic revolution. They aim to bring these movements into a more generative dialogue together, and to do the kind of work that can only happen when those three movements are working together and resourcing each other.
Aaron emphasized that movements they work with, like Black Lives Matter, face physical threats from police and other powerful, influential people. They’ve found there is a difficulty between who has the land and who needs the land.
Movement-makers need to know that police won’t be at (or even near) the center.
Some people may sound paranoid because they’re having a mental health crisis (and that’s why they need retreat); but their paranoia may stem from lived experience (just because they’re paranoid doesn’t mean law enforcement isn’t tracking them).
Wildseed is looking for centers to partner with when people are going through these kinds of complex crises, to give people room to heal.
Nanci is co-director of Tatamagouche Centre, which is a spiritual and justice-oriented retreat center, with a strong focus on collective care and rest. They’re land and water defenders, and also focused on food justice.
Nanci emphasized the difficulty that can come when your retreat center’s founding organization is tied to harm against marginalized communities. Repairing relationships with marginalized communities doesn’t happen overnight; it takes decades (or longer). It’s best to openly acknowledge your organization’s history and ongoing problems; while also rolling up your sleeves on reconciliation, reparations, and right relations.
Will is working alongside the Am Kolel Jewish community at the Sanctuary Retreat Center in Poolesville, Maryland, to begin opening up their center for activists and non-profit movement shakers in the DC area to have retreat space.
Will emphasized the importance of retreat centers being clear and communicative about what they do and do not have to offer. It can feel uncomfortable to admit that there are areas where your center falls short, but it’s better for guests to arrive with the appropriate expectations. This helps to develop trust.
Brooke is co-director of Watershed Center in upstate New York, which has been open for about a decade. They are social-justice oriented and focused on holding their guests with depth and care. They share adjoining lands with Rocksteady Farm, Wildseed Community Farm, Ancestral Heart Zen Monastery, Sweet Freedom Farm, and the Schaghticoke First Nations community.
Brooke emphasized that their center has learned some hard lessons around going slow and being mindful about the relationships they build. Bridging across culture and across power can be complicated. The length of a partnership and the amount of money involved can increase this complexity. The partnerships they’ve had with the most success with were ones they took the time to build with depth.
What Change-Makers Need from Retreat Centers
Inner transformation can be difficult when you fear for your safety, don’t feel welcome in a space, or simply don’t have spare time to devote to yet another program. People working on the front lines of social change are struggling with all of these roadblocks (and more) when it comes to retreat.
Change-makers need spaces that are securely held, flexible in their programming, and welcoming to a variety of cultures and perspectives. When operating in right-relationship with people and the land, retreat centers offer a powerful opportunity to give change-makers space to heal mentally, emotionally, physically.
There’s pressure to always be ‘practicing value’ in some way as defined by the dominant culture. It’s really important that we’re able to give ourselves the permission to lean back and lean into other ways of knowing and doing that have nothing to do with doing anything.
Developing Relationships
The social-change partnerships that have gone well for retreat centers are the ones centers have taken the time to build with depth. Community building can happen around shared activities with very little agenda.
Gatherings: Try gathering on the land—focusing on food, ceremony, or rest (just rest; “rest is resistance”).
Education: Participate in educational opportunities to learn more about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Approach: Approach new relationships with trust, transparency, clarity, love, and a spirit of reciprocity.
Avoiding Pitfalls
Go slow. Establishing trusting relationships takes time. Jumping into relationships very quickly, especially ones that have high degrees of complexity, can cause harm to everyone involved. Be sure to hold past harm with care and mindfulness. Don’t bypass it or try to hide it.
Tatamagouche Centre offers walking audio tours of their centre that include the elders who have ancestral and family ties to the land. They share and bring those stories together in one place.
Story and storytelling is a way to connect and render past harm explicit and talk about it.
Questions to Ask
Before starting down the road of partnering with change-makers, ask these questions:
What’s your center’s purpose? What’s the relationship your center has to local, national, and international movements for social change? Is your center designed for those movements? What’s the relationship you’re really trying to foster? What kind of world you are trying to create?
What does your center have to offer? What can your center offer within your capacity? What can you not offer? (There can be a deep temptation in retreat work to be everything to everybody. Name what you can’t offer up front—clarity is kindness.)
How will your center hold the space? How can your staff be accessible and present without overly centering yourselves?
How will your center develop the relationship? How can follow-up go from transactional (simply handing out an invoice) to a continuing, transformational relationship? How will you stay connected?
Notes and Audio
Click on the button below to access PDFs, audio, and additional meeting notes.
Join the Discussion
Do you work at a retreat center? Would you like to connect with the RCC community for more insights and support? Find out about our upcoming events:
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RCC has also launched a private Facebook group for retreat center professionals to connect as peers, learn, share, collaborate, and socialize together. This space is for you and it’s open now!
